MSL Cruise Phase Options

[nprev]

Okay, we're off and running! Please post all comments relating to MSL's transit to Mars here.

[Guest_Oersted_*]

The live footage of the first couple of kilometers of the cruise looked really good...

[climber]

Oppy, here I come !
Waiting for post launch conference now!

[nprev]

Yeah, that was indeed a beautiful sight to behold, all right.

Now the waiting begins.

[vikingmars]

... and we just had champagne at home near Paris to celebrate it, because of many known friends involved in the MSL mission... and also because, in France, we share the ChemCam experiment with the USA. Long life to MSL / Curiosity !
As we used to say in France : BRAVO to the MSL Team and CHAMPAGNE !!!

[Guest_Oersted_*]

Oppy, here I come !
Waiting for post launch conference now!

Waiting for that, when will it be? - Soon? - On NASATV they have a "tweetup" atm...

[climber]

Waiting for that, when will it be? - Soon? - On NASATV they have a "tweetup" atm...

They said 2 to 3 hours after launch!!! Guess they were much precise on MSL trajectory

Edited: got the answer! It'be at 18.30 eastern today in another 10 mn!

[DEChengst]

They just started showing the title card for the post-launch news conference, so I'll guess it will start in a few minutes.

EDIT: Starting right now.

EDIT2: Not much news. Trajectory right on the money. Two way communications established. All temperatures and voltages where they should be.

[sgendreau]

EDIT2: Not much news.


No news is good news for a long while now, I guess. Counting down till August 6!

[dmg]

Anyone know why the telemetry pickup from the launch vehicle via TDRS was so spotty?

[MarsEngineer]

No news is good news indeed!

We are watching cruise stage temps (most look great) - we had to turn one heater off because it was getting a tad warm. A few other things we are watching and learning about. Nothing like real telemetry. Otherwise very boring! Boring is good.

I am happy that everything is so darn nominal (knocks on wood). I am getting the "shift handover' summary from the ops flight director now. Nominal. Nominal. Nominal. (even the word makes me sleepy.) (But I am getting off-nomially sick of too many peanuts. Normally we have one jar but today there were at least three being passed around the cruise MSA. )

We will try to keep things boring until Aug. We still have oh so much to do - Test the final EDL flight software, test/finish the final surface software, there are more bugs still to uncover no doubt.

We may do the spin down to 2 rpm tomorrow (per "nominal" plan - that word again). Still talking about it. May want to wait for the temps to settle down first.We will have to do TCM-1 one of these days (first trajectory correction maneuver). We have weeks but it would be great to get it done sooner than later. Lots of cruise checkouts to do too.

Did you enjoy that launch as much as I did? It is very surreal to see stuff that you have had your hands on being pushed up and up into the sky like that, knowing it is not likely to return to Earth any time soon.

By the way, perhaps someone has mentioned this, Peter and I had your miniaturized names and signatures put on the back of the rover (next to the camera targets). If you were a Martian with very very good eyes you would be able read 12 million names and many thousands of signatures simply by leaning over the rover and reading.



-Rob

[climber]

Tanks Rob, I was browsing like mad to get any news first hand... And here you are, always keen to inform us! I get very excited during final pool when I heard Peter T saying "Spacecraft's Go"! Very emotional indeed!
Thanks again...and now I know where's the best place to get those so great boring news!

[MERovingian]

Bravo to all the teams involved, JPL, ULA, NASA, KSC and thanks for a beautiful day!!

From now on, I will let my nails grow in expectation of the Mars landing next August; the last EDLs I remember - close to eight years ago- I ate them all the way to the blood.

[Pando]

No news is good news indeed!
...
Did you enjoy that launch as much as I did? It is very surreal to see stuff that you have had your hands on being pushed up and up into the sky like that, knowing it is not likely to return to Earth any time soon.
-Rob

Thanks for the insider info; it's a fantastic day to see a next gen rover being launched successfully and on its way to Mars.

Next August is going to be really exciting.

I just hope you guys removed the lens cap before launch...

[nprev]

Rob, thanks very much for taking the trouble during this busy time to give us this peek!

Go have one on me after the shift, and may the next 8.5 months be boring indeed!!!

[Explorer1]

Actually the last EDL was in 2008 with the Phoenix; though that wasn't a rover though right?

[Guest_Oersted_*]

Did you enjoy that launch as much as I did? It is very surreal to see stuff that you have had your hands on being pushed up and up into the sky like that, knowing it is not likely to return to Earth any time soon.

I sat in my apartment in Brussels, Belgium, rooting animatedly for MSL and eating too many peanuts while my pregnant wife Sandra watched TV, slightly bemused. Our girl will be born in late March next year, if all goes well, and I am hoping that she and MSL will share parallel journeys of discovery on neighbouring planets in this solar system of ours.

I cannot imagine a better example of what's best about humanity to show to her, through her childhood and hopefully adolescence. Science, cooperation, a quest for knowledge: All these good traits that can be summed up in one word, Curiosity, are what I want to hold up to my daughter as an example of what to strive for.

So, yes, you can say that emotionally I have a lot riding on Curiosity.

I feel privileged to be vicariously part of the ride and now look forward to a quiet and relaxing cruise stage while I, personally, reach other deadlines here on Earth...

[Guest_Oersted_*]

I uploaded footage of the launch and spacecraft separation for those who might not have been able to see it...

http://www.youtube.com/user/wwwDOTdalsgaar...4/0/qOJqDNp2afE

http://www.youtube.com/user/wwwDOTdalsgaar...4/1/k9xpePuiqA8

[Syrinx]

Thank you sir for the videos. I was unable to watch this morning due to my Texas -> California launch on a Boeing first stage.

[tanjent]

I'm having some trouble with "data dropouts" myself while trying to view the videos - I wanted to review the telemetry data on the evolution of perigee and apogee during the second Centaur burn, because the first time through I did not understand what I was seeing. My recollection is that after a steady increase the apogee figures dropped abruptly somewhere over Madagascar. This may have simply indicated a move to a higher power of 10 on the display but it was too blurry to be sure. The perigee seemed to be stuck somewhere in the 80's or -80's (couldn't tell if it was a negative sign or a "star" in the simulation). This I really did not understand because it persisted even after the spacecraft was well on its way to Mars. Is it just that after a certain point the perigee ceased to update? Maybe some rocket scientist here can explain how the perigee figure would be expected to evolve if we actually continued to track it as the spacecraft approaches escape velocity. Seems to me both apogee and perigee would eventually have to go to infinity at the point where the vehicle transitions to a solar orbit but when it becomes possible to view the video without a "please try again later" message I am sure it will confirm that this is not what we actually saw.

[john_s]

I was watching those numbers too. The apogee should have gone infinite when MSL reached escape speed- if I recall correctly it actually went negative on the display, though the moment of reaching escape was missed in the NASA feed because of a cutaway to the launch control center. Perigee however should stay finite- after engine cutoff the the spacecraft was on a hyperbolic trajectory relative to the earth, and a hyperbola has a well-defined closest approach point to Earth (perigee). The actual value of perigee could go up or down during the burn depending on the burn direction- theoretically I suppose it could end up below the Earth's surface, though it would probably not be fuel-efficient to bend the trajectory in that direction.

John

[tanjent]

OK - I bet it actually finds the perigee by looking backwards along its escape hyperbola, and naturally that would intersect the earth at some point. Got it, I think!

[MahFL]

The separation video was just awesome, although I did not know the back side of the cruise stage was covered with solar panels, so I was a bit unsure of what exactly I was looking at, but it looked fantastic.

[OKB001]

The separation video was just awesome, although I did not know the back side of the cruise stage was covered with solar panels, so I was a bit unsure of what exactly I was looking at, but it looked fantastic.

It sure did. Although, I was hoping for a bit more live feed from the onboard cameras during the flight ... oh well.

[kwan3217]

(Full inline quote removed- Mod)

The apogee for a perfect parabola is infinite, but if you run the formulas to find the perigee and apogee of an ellipse, on a hyperbola, you will get the correct perigee but a finite, negative apogee. Obviously a distance can never be negative (you can never be closer to me than at my same position, with zero distance) but you can run all the formulas in reverse with this negative apogee and get the correct position and velocity of the spacecraft.

Which brings me to my second point: There is in theory enough information in the elements to get the position and velocity of the spacecraft during the burns, if they are all consistent. One thing I don't know is how they handle "altitude". A really common way to do it is to take the radius distance from the center and subtract the equatorial radius of the Earth, but since the Earth is not a perfect sphere, this would result in a negative altitude at launch. So I don't know what you have to add to get back the radius vector, and it may be two different things for different altitudes. I remember seeing one of these simulations where the altitude wasn't in between periapse and apoapse.

Back to the original point: Since the apogee took one value and stuck with it after escape velocity was achieved, maybe they just put in some fill value, like -9999999 meters, and translated it to nautical miles. In which case, after escape, the orbital elements become insufficient to reconstruct position and velocity.

[tanjent]

Well, the altitude should be directly observable by the spacecraft avionics with no mathematical projection required. But you may be right, Kwan, because, as you mentioned, there were periods during the second burn when it seemed to be decreasing. I took this to mean that we were accelerating towards the Mars transfer orbit along a path that initially was sub-tangential to the curvature of the earth. Really, I wish I could see the telemetry readout again without having to watch those tiny blurry numbers in the corner of the simulation video. Dmuller should write them a little package that could run independently in its own window!

[scalbers]

Back to the original point: Since the apogee took one value and stuck with it after escape velocity was achieved, maybe they just put in some fill value, like -9999999 meters, and translated it to nautical miles. In which case, after escape, the orbital elements become insufficient to reconstruct position and velocity.

Yes those numbers were fascinating. I assumed we just had one look at the numbers after the orbit went hyperbolic (eccentricity > 1). It seemed a reasonable value of negative apogee for a hyperbolic orbit. Osculating orbital elements of course can always be converted to an instantaneous position and velocity. I wrote a FORTRAN subroutine a long time ago that does this conversion - at least for heliocentric orbits.

I wonder what the earth-relative velocity and eccentricity values were when the engines cut off? It takes about 3.2 km/sec delta-V to go from low-Earth orbit to reach escape velocity (11.3 km/sec). Another 0.6 km/sec or so is needed to get to a Mars transfer orbit, though it looks from this press-kit excerpt that the actual excess velocity is more like 3.3 km/sec.

Orbit at SC Separation
Perigee: 104.0 km
Inclination: 35.5 deg
Hyperbolic Departure
Hyperbolic Excess Velocity Squared (C3): 10.78 km2/sec2
Declination of the Launch Asymtote (DLA): -1.10 deg
Right Ascention of the Launch Asymtote (RLA): 126.6 deg

Approximate Values
Orbit parameters shown for launch on 25 Nov 2011 at 10:25 a.m. EST.

And the following velocity equation from Wikipedia can help get back the semimajor axis, and then the eccentricity:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliptic_orbit

Steve

[Astro0]

A little late to the party I guess. My weekend was very busy with our very first NASA-style Tweetup at the CanberraDSN.
A large group watched the launch on our big screen (at 2.02am!) and then headed out to watch our antennas acquire the spacecraft shortly after its separation and the beginning of its cruise to Mars.

A few hours later I headed back out into the light of dawn and snapped this panorama of our dishes at work.



That's DSS34 on the left tracking Curiosity; DSS43 in the middle tracking Mars Odyssey and MRO (warning them that's something is on its way); and just past the rainbow on the right is DSS45, which was the prime antenna for the acquisition and also tracking Curiosity when this photo was taken. Note: it may look as if DSS34 and DSS45 are pointing in opposite directions but wrap that panorama around and they are pointing the same way.

[Guest_Oersted_*]

Oh, a rainbow to boot! Lovely panorama and thanks for the explanation about the various antennas.

[MarsEngineer]

A little late to the party I guess. My weekend was very busy with our very first NASA-style Tweetup at the CanberraDSN.
A large group watched the launch on our big screen (at 2.02am!) and then headed out to watch our antennas acquire the spacecraft shortly after its separation and the beginning of its cruise to Mars.

A few hours later I headed back out into the light of dawn and snapped this panorama of our dishes at work.



That's DSS34 on the left tracking Curiosity; DSS43 in the middle tracking Mars Odyssey and MRO (warning them that's something is on its way); and just past the rainbow on the right is DSS45, which was the prime antenna for the acquisition and also tracking Curiosity when this photo was taken. Note: it may look as if DSS34 and DSS45 are pointing in opposite directions but wrap that panorama around and they are pointing the same way.

Hi Astro0,

Would you mind if I shared this with the MSL gang here at JPL? They would LOVE it! (I did) Who shall I give credit?

-Rob Manning (MSL chief engineer)

[MarsEngineer]

Hi all,

Please take a look at the observations made by Duncan Waldron (of the Sir Thomas Brisbane Planetarium in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia).

Images and a movie of the Centaur upper stage venting and (remarkably MSL just after separation) from yesterday's launch:

http://www.facebook.com/BrisbanePlanetarium

Amazing. I shared it with our team here too.

-Rob

[nprev]

...words utterly fail me. Just remarkable.

Many thanks for posting this, Rob!

[eoincampbell]

WOW! Thanks for sharing another "Heimdall" moment

[tanjent]

Quote: http://www.facebook.com/BrisbanePlanetarium

"Other than observations by Brisbane Planetarium staff on Sunday, no other reports have been received of observations of the Mars Science Laboratory, Centaur rocket stage and plume thousands of kilometres out from Earth. Looks like only three of us saw this unique sight. Timings - Curator Mark Rigby (whose camera plays up!) first sees the plume at 2:15am and it is like a one-degree elongated cloud of VERY easy naked eye brightness. Duncan Waldron sees it about 2:30pm and begins photography as it fades. Nonetheless, he captures a unique timelapse covering 21 minutes until 3am"

Sounds familiar. I believe I saw New Horizons off from a similar vantage point. See post 460 in the NH launch thread. (That will remain forever unconfirmed, but it's still interesting to know that these things can be naked-eye visible at such distances.)

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...2050&st=450

[Guest_Oersted_*]

That is an amazing timelapse!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gA9U9TZZ4nc...player_embedded

[Guest_Oersted_*]

On my youtube page of MSL launch movies I am getting some questions. I have managed to answer two of them, but I need an answer for the third, which I interpret as "cruise speed of MSL"... Could someone in here maybe help me with the answer?

http://www.youtube.com/all_comments?v=k9xpePuiqA8

"pl inside earth gravity how maney km/h speed?" - I replied 11,2 km/s, which I believe is more or less the correct the escape velocity.

"after psssing gravity how maney km/h?" - Hmmm...

"when msl will reach mars?" - I replied August 2012.

[Greg Hullender]

"after psssing gravity how maney km/h?" - Hmmm...

I think he wants to know the hyperbolic excess velocity.

--Greg

[kwan3217]

(Full inline quote removed- Mod)

The guys at JPL SSD (that do the Horizons ephemeris program) got the spice kernel for a projected launch at what happened to be the actual launch time, 26 Nov at start of window. Since the launch was accurate (<0.1 sigma) this is probably pretty good. You can't get the kernel from them, but you can run Horizons and get any form of vectors or elements you want, which may be even better than a kernel.

Earth departure according to the kernel:
Kernel starts at 2011-NOV-26 15:52:12.3830 CT (not UTC, about a minute difference. UTC is 2011-11-26T15:51:06.200 at kernel start)
Periapse was 798.736 seconds before this, 13m18.736 seconds, so periapse was at 2011-Nov-26 15:38:53.647 CT (15:37:47.464 UTC)
Periapse distance: 6572.438km from the center of the Earth, or about 194km altitude
Eccentricity: 1.17677
From this, velocity at periapse was 11.490km/s. This was 476m/s above escape speed at this altitude. Hyperbolic excess speed (v_inf, eventual speed of departure from Earth) is 3.274km/s, for a C3 of 10.721

Spaceflightnow reported centaur main engine start 2 at 32:40 MET (15:34:40 UTC) and cutoff at 40:30 MET(15:42:30 UTC) so theoretical periapse is during the centaur burn, which is kind of as expected.

The second burn also was used to increase the inclination, so it was not purely in plane. The parking orbit was something like 28deg inclination, while departure was at 34.5deg. This is weird, since you should be able to launch at an azimuth such that no plane change is needed in the second burn.

[Roby72]

Here you could see Curiosity 10 hours 30 minutes after launch - taken by Austrian amateur Gerhard Dangl:

http://www.dangl.at/2011/msl/msl.htm

Video here:
http://www.dangl.at/2011/msl/msl.avi

very good result in my opinion !

Robert

[Guest_Bobby_*]

Question? Is there a site either through JPL or another place that shows where MSL is now. A tracking site showing location. I can't seem to find one.

Thanks.

[punkboi]

http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/

MSL's position should eventually be posted on this page

EDIT: And this page as well:

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/mission/whereistherovernow/

[Astro0]

As usual, Eyes on the Solar System can take us all on a ride throughout MSL's cruise phase.

From the Twitter site:
Preliminary @MarsCuriosity trajectory is in. http://1.usa.gov/tU6T8m to ride onboard looking back at Earth http://twitpic.com/7lqw60

TIP: If you haven't used Eyes on the Solar System - DO SO!
Note: You will need to download the Unity player plug-in for your browser (it'll tell you if you haven't already got it).

[Explorer1]

Is the cruise stage's spin in real-time?
Great attention to detail if so!

[MahFL]

Don't forget, the whole Rover is spinning....lol. Thankfully she does not have a human "brain".

[MahFL]

I am not sure how accurate the model is but it looks like there is only one thruster jet on the cruise stage for course corrections, I would have thought 2 would be more reliable.

[ilbasso]

Should we bring her back for repairs?

[MahFL]

I just read that the hand lens imager can take pics and movies of the rover it'self, even when driving, and can infact reach higher than the Mastcam, that will be so cool to see.

[pospa]

Also VERY cool would be any MAHLI picture from inside of the spacecraft during the cruise phase ... as was done with Phoenix RAC camera.
Do we know if MSL team has intention to do such a test shot?

[climber]

You can even dream of a shot of Spacecraft separation as seen from the spacecraft

[ElkGroveDan]

The next images we'll see from MSL will likely be from MARDI.

[eoincampbell]

...I just read that the hand lens imager can take pics and movies...

Could you provide a link ? I think Doug mentioned this before. I've only read that MAHLI would do time-lapse type frames...

[djellison]

Also VERY cool would be any MAHLI picture from inside of the spacecraft during the cruise phase ... as was done with Phoenix RAC camera.
Do we know if MSL team has intention to do such a test shot?

Don't know if they plan to - but I would have thought they would... inflight-cal is a useful post-launch checkout. I wouldn't expect them to actuate the lens cover - but they could certainly power up the white-light LED's and take a picture inside the backshell. It would, I think, show the steering actuator for the front left wheel in its stowed position.

Is the cruise stage's spin in real-time?
Great attention to detail if so!

No - it's canned at 2rpm ( the nominal cruise spin rate) Remember, 'Eyes...' uses a combination of predicted and reconstructed data. Getting 'live' data thru from a flight project in these ITAR laden times is a mountain that even I'm not even going to attempt.

I am not sure how accurate the model is but it looks like there is only one thruster jet on the cruise stage for course corrections, I would have thought 2 would be more reliable.

Using this image as reference:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/msl/20111110/pia15026-43.jpg

Assuming you meant the thruster at about 5 O'clock...that's not a thruster you're looking at. That's the star-tracker.

There are 8 thrusters - two clusters of 4. In that image they are at about 1 O'clock and 7 O'clock, covered with a red remove before flight fixture. They're tiny.

Could you provide a link ? I think Doug mentioned this before. I've only read that MAHLI would do time-lapse type frames...

If you google MAHLI. The very first link takes you to the MSSS page that includes a link to 'reference material'.
Documents like this : http://www.msss.com/msl/mahli/references/E...l_MarsMicro.pdf : and this : http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2009/pdf/1197.pdf should fill you in. I've heard annecdotal comments that using MAHLI for DD surveys is possible, as it's the widest FOV camera (apart from MARDI, which obviously isn't going to be looking for DD's) with the movie ability. Mastcam 34 is roughly Pancam FOV, and Mastcam 100 about 1/3rd of that - whereas MAHLI is, if my math is right - about 30 x 23 deg FOV. The question would be - is it worth the large energy spend to move the arm into an elevated position for such a survey. It's not something I'd expect to see happening early on, that's for sure.

D

[Deimos]

http://msl-scicorner.jpl.nasa.gov/Instruments/MAHLI/

Search down to "video". The 4 cameras (2 mastcam detector+electronics assemblies + MAHLI + MARDI) have common detectors and electronics, and thus many of the same capabilities--the filters on the mastcam and the capabilities enabled by their location on the rover being the obvious exceptions.

There are a lot of ideas to take advantage of this and the general ability to focus out to infinity. We'll have to figure out which are operationally feasible given the other desires for rover activities.

[MarsEngineer]

There are 8 thrusters - two clusters of 4. In that image they are at about 1 O'clock and 7 O'clock, covered with a red remove before flight fixture. They're tiny.

D

Doug has it right. The two thruster clusters on either side of the cruise stage used by MSL are nearly exactly the same used on Mars Pathfinder and MER.

Each thruster can provide about a pound of push when needed. This configuration is very handy (if I do say so myself ) for doing "balanced" turns(*) that do not impart unwanted changes in the trajectory. Considering MSL is so big compared with these other mars missions, it is amazing that these little thrusters are all we need to keep the solar arrays pointed roughly to the sun and the antennas roughly toward the Earth. It is even more amazing that they can also refine MSL's flight path to stay on course (obviously MSL's TCMs take more time to accelerate the same amount as MER or MPF because MSL is several times more massive).

* we use the word "turn" to denote a rotation of the vehicle, not a left or right turn of the flight path. The latter we call TCMs - trajectory correction maneuvers.

-Rob

PS Doug, Nice tool!!!!!

[john_s]

I love the idea of the rover doing an "arms-length self portrait" like we all do with our point-and-shoots. In color too! That will be something to look forward to (one of many things).

John

[djellison]

It took all the way until working on the MSL animation that I learned how TCM's are done when you're still spinning at 2rpm It's very elegant! It's like a brother on a merry-go-round trying to kick his sister each time he spins past her

It's why I wanted to have something more than '8 months later' - we cut it down a bit for the finished thing, earlier we had a burn from each cluster, at the same point in the rotation - http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=playe...boyXQuUIw#t=41s

[climber]

I noticed on a previous video that legs extended and rétros fired BEFORE been released from the parachutte! The link you provide here is both More recent and accurate.

[djellison]

Actually - the descent stage thrusters do start before sep from the backshell, but only at about 1%, so you wouldn't see anything.

The earlier animation was accurate at the time it was made. The decision to release the mobility system later in the sequence came between the old animation and the new one. (and during production of the new animation we were chasing the change from a hard drop, to a soft release and back to a hard drop..which is what we ended up with)

[john_s]

That "hard drop", with the rover falling out of the backshell in free-fall before the engines kick in, is the scariest part of the animation IMHO. I assume the purpose is to get some safe distance between the rover and the backshell.

And though it's been said many times before, it bears repeating- that's a fabulous piece of movie-making.

John

[climber]

I read, where?, that, as soon as released, Curiosity performs a manoeuver to put a safe distance between backshell? and parachutte? Can't really notice in the movie...or didn't look properly. Can you confirm this, Doug?

[Ron Hobbs]

From what I thought was a very informative article in the January 2011 issue of Aerospace America from the AIAA:

"Things begin to happen fast at backshell and parachute separation, but the first thing the sky crane and Curiosity do is nothing." "The contraption is programmed to free-fall for 1 sec to be well clear of the ... parachute canopy, risers, and backshell."

"Next (after MLE ignition) the vehicle maneuvers laterally to prevent having the backshell and parachute collide in midair or land on top of each other - the worst of luck 150 million miles from Earth."

This may have changed, although some kind of collision avoidance must still be included.

Ron

[djellison]

Ron - as far as I know, that article has it about right. (Apart from semantics of MLE fire up.... they're just warming up at 1% before the drop)

http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/handle/2014/41629 was our go-to document for EDL

At initiation of BSS, separation nuts are fired to release the PDV from the backshell. For one second, the PDV freefalls out of the backshell to provide sufficient separation to avoid inadvertent recontact when maneuvering begins. Once this one-second freefall is complete, the eight MLEs are throttled up from their 1% near-shutdown condition and the PDV begins a 2.2 second period during which any residual attitude rates from the BSS event are removed and the PDV assumes a pre-defined attitude for the beginning of powered descent...
...During Powered Approach, the PDV follows a 3-D polynomial trajectory which was computed at BSS. As the PDV follows the polynomial, horizontal velocity is smoothly brought to zero while vertical velocity is simultaneously brought to 20 m/s. The end point of the trajectory is about 100 m above the surface and 300 m perpendicular to the plane of the entry trajectory. Since the PDV is actively slowing, the parachute and backshell will actually travel past the PDV and reach the surface ahead of the PDV. The 300 m divert distance is adequate to ensure the PDV does not land on the parachute or backshell. Once the endpoint of the Powered Approach trajectory is reached, the Constant Velocity Accordion begins

So there isn't a discreet avoidance maneuver as there was with PHX ( although PHX didn't actually need it's after all ) - but avoidance is part of the mix of the trajectory design from BSS to the CVP

Enough TLA's

Thanks John - the heavy lifting was Bohemian Grey - I just pointed them in the right direction. The BSS is the moment I'm most proud of...and showing it to the EDL team for the first time one the highlights of my short time at JPL so far. It involved a spontaneous high-five across a conference room table

[MahFL]

Well I should have known better the tragectory maneuvers would not be done with a single thruster , confidence is restored .

[Syrinx]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/...11201220357.htm

Almost entirely good news. The one small bit of unexpected news (nothing to worry about):

The spacecraft experienced a computer reset on Tuesday apparently related to star-identifying software in the attitude control system. The reset put the spacecraft briefly into a precautionary safe mode. Engineers restored it to normal operational status for functions other than attitude control while planning resumption of star-guided attitude control.

[stevesliva]

Seems to be regurgitating the same source:
http://spaceflightnow.com/atlas/av028/111201noburn.html

[MahFL]

The Eyes on the Solar System make my IE 8 crash after a while, does anyone have the same problem ?, says "too many heap" entries.

[B Bernatchez]

No problems for me (that wouldn't be fixed by a better video card).

[djellison]

The Eyes on the Solar System make my IE 8 crash after a while, does anyone have the same problem ?, says "too many heap" entries.

Hence the Beta label. It happens. Just don't use it too look at too much stuff before restarting it ( I know, sounds lame, but it does work ) It's a Unity plugin problem that we're looking at, but is mainly outside our control.

[Mars Attack]

I'm a bit concerned about the reported reset of the MSL computer and safemode due to a star tracker. If this reset had happened in the middle of the upcoming trajectory correction burn, originally schedules a week or so post anomaly, wouldn't this have been disastrous? MSL is on a course to miss Mars by 38000 miles. Could it be that the delay of this course correction might have been influnenced by this potentially serioius malfunction? If I'm wrong, please write some words of assurance. Thanks

[ElkGroveDan]

There is extra fuel aboard and my understanding is that due to a precise initial burn they have already delayed the first TCM by a month or so. Typically these craft are built with redundancies and contingencies built upon redundancies and contingencies. One common and predictable anomaly is not going to sink the entire mission. Chill.

[Hiwayman]

Sorry for this being posted in the wrong forum, but the launch topic is closed. Did anyone notice the "umbilical" or "hose like" aperture that was still attached to the fairing during launch? It was about 10' - 15' ft from the top of the nose and protruded out about 3-4 feet? Not all cameras caught it, but it was clearly visible on the camera that showed the fairing separation, and another ground based camera. Once the fairing was ejected, the aperture went with it, so it became a mute point, but it sure looked like it was something that should have been left on the ground rather than fly with the vehicle. Did anyone see it? It obviously did not affect the trajectory as it was close to perfect.

[elakdawalla]

Someone else pointed this out to me on the Atlas fairing on the Juno launch -- I think it's an Atlas V thing, and is normal.

[Hiwayman]

Someone else pointed this out to me on the Atlas fairing on the Juno launch -- I think it's an Atlas V thing, and is normal.

Thanks, Emily!

[stevesliva]

If this reset had happened in the middle of the upcoming trajectory correction burn, originally schedules a week or so post anomaly, wouldn't this have been disastrous?

Nope.

[Mars Attack]

Nope.

Thanks folks for the reassurance!

[climber]

Someone else pointed this out to me on the Atlas fairing on the Juno launch -- I think it's an Atlas V thing, and is normal.

Yes, very visible indeed! Must be normal if already hapened before but quite a big device.

[Paolo]

I'm a bit concerned about the reported reset of the MSL computer and safemode due to a star tracker. If this reset had happened in the middle of the upcoming trajectory correction burn, originally schedules a week or so post anomaly, wouldn't this have been disastrous?

beside the fact that missing the first trajectory correction would still leave plenty of time to recover, I think star trackers are not used during burns in order not to mislead them into tracking particles or small debris.

[centsworth_II]

There is extra fuel aboard and my understanding is that due to a precise initial burn they have already delayed the first TCM by a month or so...

I saw this too, but it confuses me. As I understand it, the initial burn aimed away from Mars and the 1st TCM was to aim at Mars. How could a precise burn aiming away from Mars affect the timing of the first TCM?

[djellison]

From http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/handle/2014/41883

The first three TCMs will be jointly optimized to reduce propellant consumption and fulfill
planetary protection requirements, with TCM-3 being the first TCM that is targeted to the final
entry interface point. TCM-4 and TCM-5 will be used to improve the delivery accuracy at the entry
interface, while TCM-6 is a contingency maneuver opportunity that is not needed to achieve the
required entry interface accuracy, but is available to correct an unplanned late anomaly

My understanding is that TCM 1 was only ever about backing out injection errors...and as they are so small, there's no need for it.

[Guest_Oersted_*]

Sorry for this being posted in the wrong forum, but the launch topic is closed. Did anyone notice the "umbilical" or "hose like" aperture that was still attached to the fairing during launch? It was about 10' - 15' ft from the top of the nose and protruded out about 3-4 feet? Not all cameras caught it, but it was clearly visible on the camera that showed the fairing separation, and another ground based camera. Once the fairing was ejected, the aperture went with it, so it became a mute point, but it sure looked like it was something that should have been left on the ground rather than fly with the vehicle. Did anyone see it? It obviously did not affect the trajectory as it was close to perfect.

At NASASpaceflight.com they have a drinking game going on for every time this question is being asked (ps: better to ask a question about it than just assuming it is an error):...
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=27385.360

???
I was rewatching the curiosity launch and noticed a thin bent tube rocket firing on the side of the fairing right before fairing sep...what is the engineering and aerospace reasoning for this?

LH2 vent fin

Atlas V launch drinking game: when someone asks this question, drink. When someone answers accurately, drink. If Jim is first, drink again.

And as to what it actually is, it is called the LH2 vent fin.

Supremely uncatastrophical explanation here:

"Its a LH2 vent fin — a small pipe. The RL-10 engine, which powers the second stage of the rocket and is enclosed inside the fairing, uses liquid hydrogen as fuel. The LH2 is constantly boiling off producing gas, some of it is used to keep the tank pressurized, the rest must be vented overboard as a gas (it is not ignited) to avoid an explosive situation in the enclosed and confined interstage area while the RL-10 engine is inactive.
After the fairing is jettisoned, the H2 gas is simply vented directly to space causing the flare/glow that you see.
As far as any thrust is concerned resulting from the venting, it is trivial compared to the muscle of the RD-180 engine which powers the first stage — there is a lot of control authority from it."

Engineering drawings here:
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=26327.345

[nprev]

Yeah, it really was a sweet launch...and major kudos again, Doug, for the Eyes On The Solar System sim of the journey.

Best...Christmas...toy...EVER!!!

[Mars Attack]

Mr. Doug Djellison, any chance that you could expand your totally awesome sim of the MSL journey to include a realtime EDL phase so all of us can watch a second by second, sweat producing and heart stopping animation all the way to the touchdown. Just a suggestion. Thanks for all you do for this forum.

[djellison]

We hope to - but it's entirely a matter of budgets. I can't promise anything. I will say that it is highly unlikely that such a thing would be driven by realtime telemetry during EDL for a wide range of reasons to long to discuss here. It would likely be driven by a predicted series of events, with key moments triggered manually at JPL.

[climber]

We hope to - but it's entirely a matter of budgets. I can't promise anything. I will say that it is highly unlikely that such a thing would be driven by realtime telemetry during EDL for a wide range of reasons to long to discuss here. It would likely be driven by a predicted series of events, with key moments triggered manually at JPL.

Doug, I didn't tell you yet but yes, your "sim" is one order of magnitude better than the one we had for MER...which was already awesome.
Regarding realtime (I was about to ask actually) we have some experience there with live comments been off set with the images (like "we should be on the ground by now..."), the parachutte deployment been "decided" by the real hardware and then been informed when it actually happened "parachutte deployed xxx second later than calculated). I guess we know this but anyway.
So, if buget's ok...we'll be glad to have us the feeling of been there instead of only eating peanuts.

[punkboi]

You can now view MSL's current position in space on JPL's Solar System Simulator

http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/

[Syrinx]

http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspace?t...=1&showac=1

MSL and inner planets. Long journey ahead.

[Lucas]

For the impatient among us...

http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspace?t...=1&showac=1

in very good agreement with the "countdown" clock at the MSL site (obviously!)

[pospa]

T +18 days - MSL has about 9% of its cruise done and starts to collect first scientific data - RAD instrument is on.

[punkboi]

Where is Curiosity now? There's now a dedicated page on its mission website

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/mission/whereistherovernow/

[Guest_Lunik9_*]

New sunspot 1387 erupted during the late hours of Christmas Day, producing an M4-class flare and hurling a Coronal Mass Ejection - CME toward Earth and Mars.

The CME is expected to deliver a glancing blow to Earth's magnetic field on Dec. 28th at 1200 UT and a direct hit to the planet Mars on Dec. 30th at 1800 UT.
Using onboard radiation sensors, NASA's Curiosity rover might be able to sense the CME when it passes the rover's spacecraft en route to Mars.

Here on Earth, NOAA forecasters estimate a 30-to-40% chance of geomagnetic storms on Dec. 28th when the CME and an incoming solar wind stream (unrelated to the CME) could arrive in quick succession. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras on Wednesday night.

[Explorer1]

How large would an event have to be to seriously impact the electronics on-board MSL? I remember how the MERs avoided the really big ones on their cruise around Halloween 2003, with lots of relief on the ground.

[centsworth_II]

According to Curiosity and the Solar Storm, CMEs present no threat to MSL.

"With solar activity on the upswing it's only a matter of time before a CME engulfs the Mars-bound rover. That suits some researchers just fine. As Don Hassler of the Southwest Research Institute (SWRI) in Boulder, Colorado, explains, 'We look forward to such encounters because Curiosity is equipped to study solar storms.'

Encounters with CMEs pose little danger to Curiosity. By the time a CME reaches the Earth-Mars expanse, it is spread so thin that it cannot truly buffet the spacecraft."

[pospa]

TCM-1 scheduled for Jan 11th, dv 5,5 m/s.
Then equipment tests for one week, starting from Jan 15th.
Let's see if we'll get some picture(s) from interior.

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-004

[pospa]

TCM-1 completed successfully.
Rob Manning describing correction maneuver while almost whispering in mission control room. Nice

[Phil Stooke]

"By the time a CME reaches the Earth-Mars expanse, it is spread so thin that it cannot truly buffet the spacecraft"

I hope this also applies to MESSENGER!

Phil

[climber]

According to AW&ST next trajectory correction is scheduled on March 26th

[pospa]

Not sure if mentioned here before, but radio amateurs from Germany, Bochum have received signals (X-band telemetry) from MSL last year.
It should be the first reception of the MSL outside the official NASA DSN and USN tracking station at Dongara, Australia.

http://www.uk.amsat.org/2578

[MahFL]

Software fix for Star Tracker problem.

Tracker

[Mars Attack]

The computer that received the software fix, is it the sole computer for MSL or was it located on the cruise stage, decent stage, or the lander? If there are separate computers, will they also need a software fix for the same type of problem?

[MahFL]

... will they also need a software fix for the same type of problem?

MSL has 2 identical main computers which control all aspects of flight, EDL and the surface operations, one is a backup. There is also a fly away controller on the decent stage which enables the descent stage to keep flying away.

So no other computers need updating.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Science_Laboratory